Brainstorming for Cost Saving Opportunities at WWU

 I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but here it goes:

I'm at NTT lecturer here at WWU, and it seems hard to believe that sections are going to be cutting funding for NTT. NTT faculty are not only nearly as qualified if not over-qualified than some of their TT counterparts, but they are paid less money for more work. One way to reduce the budget is to refrain from hiring more TT faculty, and if sections need to be filled, hire NTT faculty instead.  I also propose no sabbaticals until the financial crisis is over, no funding for travel or research, and no printing budget.  As technologically advanced as our society is, there really is no need for paper these days.

Thanks!

Maybe it’s in the budget, but does anyone know how much we spend on football / basketball / baseball / etc? Are they all self supporting?

I keep hearing from the kids how much food is thrown away at the dining facilities, as energy costs continue to increase, has anyone thought of recycling that food waste in an anaerobic bio-gas digester? Could we burn the bio-gas at the steam plant, or to generate electricity and offset our costs there?

Could we give some employees the option of working reduced hours until the budget situation improves?

Would increased cooperation with WCC and the NWIC allow us to focus our efforts on upper level undergraduate and graduate level education?

I second the above suggestion about reducing our paper use, in what ways could we focus on electronic reporting and avoid the cost and environmental impact of printed reports? How could we encourage faculty to reduce the amount of paper used in their courses, perhaps by increased utilization of the Blackboard system? Would additional training opportunities support that effort?

First of all, wow, thanks for allowing input. Why don’t we focus on our energy cost? Here’s an idea, be transparent with the energy bill. Post it, e-mail, address it to the campus community and challenge EVERYONE to reduce that bill by a certain percentage in 3 months, then 6 months, ext. Talk with the residential directors and see if they could do a challenge. Challenging other dorms to reduce costs. Talk with the deans and see if they could challenge other departments. At the same time educate everyone on the costs we are saving, make them aware of the impact we are making on the environment, and promote being energy efficient.

Questions to your question to save us some money:
Why does the fountain continue to run after 5pm?
Why do all the lights need to be on in the classroom?
Why aren’t there individual thermostats in all of the dorms and offices?
How much money would we save if we just had emergency lighting on in the dorms from the hours of 1:030am to 5:30am instead of the entire building lit up?
How much money would we save if the green coats turned off the lights in the buildings before they locked them?

These are just a few ideas we are talking about through a strand on sustainability at the Teaching-Learning Academy. There are plenty of people willing to help and share their ideas, so thanks for this opportunity. Let us come together as a family around the dinner table and talk about how we are going to get through this. Side note: As a student I sure the heck would love to save costs around the university than see my tuition increase by 7%, loose our amazing faculty, or see those influential “non-core” classes be removed from the university.
Thanks again,
Mike
 

I'm fresh from a rousing Teaching Learning Academy discussion where we considered this very question.  Here's some of what we discussed.

1.  Establish priorities based on stakeholder interests.  We'd like to avoid across the board reductions in budgets.  Rather, we'd like to find ways to establish priorities so that we could identify programs or initiatives that have been funded historically but that might not be meeting current needs.  Academic culture probably changes faster than budgeting processes.  To avoid a politically charged process, perhaps an outside mediator could facilitate it.  We also mentioned the importance of representing student voices in the process.

2.  Implement incremental "do-able acts."  We heard, for example, that a previous experiment where Sodexho eliminated trays in the dining hall saved lots of wasted food, water and other resources for washing trays, and labor.  We'd like to see the campus adopt a schedule of do-able cost-savings measures.  If we had a month-long theme on conserving resources, for example, we could send out each week through My Western one or two do-able acts, strategies we can intentionally adopt as individuals or programs.

3.  Use the financial crisis as the basis for interdisciplinary, problem-based learning.  What if every department, every course, made reducing our budget a topic of disciplinary inquiry and research?  Before randomly adopting cost-saving measures, we need data to support actual savings--this could be a theme for much undergraduate research.  Establishing priorities for budgeting can be informed by disciplinary habits of mind so that we take a true interdisciplinary approach to this problem.  Every student here, regardless of major, will deal with appropriating limited resources in both their personal and professional lives.  Let's use this opportunity to equip students for these decisions.

One area that I think needs a bit more attention than it has gotten is to asses some open-source opportunities for replacing blackboard. The Western Front ran an article a few months ago about the Computer Science department looking in to Moodle as a possible BlackBoard replacement.There are some real merits to that, but it needs serious consideration.

While Moodle may be free, that doesn't mean we can replace Blackboard for cheaper than Blackboard is today. What we save in licensing costs can be lost through added head-count required to support a Moodle environment. Frequently open-source products such as this can fully negate any licensing cost-savings through increased hand-holding needs. Whether or not that's the case needs to be figured out first before we decide to move.

I have friends in other universities who have gone with Moodle and like it, so I know it can be done. Also, the framework is more open so if we decide to get creative with what our classroomware product can do, it is easier to pull it off.

That said, any hypothetical move-off-of-blackboard project is the kind of project that has to be done during summer intersession, and we only get one of those 6 week windows a year.

I work in Old Main and I constantly see "many" maintenence vehicles parked out in front of the VU and the building.  Could we cut back on the driving of the vehicles or have more then one person in the vehicle instead of everyone driving themselves.  This would save money in gas and energy.  I also agree with cutting back on paper.  I think we should make direct deposit mandetory for all employees and student workers.

Mary

We've had a lot of key turnover in management, so these aren't necessarily new ideas, but maybe ones we can look at again...

1. Telework.

• If we could find just 35 or so employees who could give-up their office at WWU and telework, we could shut down the entire AE building down on 32nd St.  Of course, we can be even more imaginative than that, but this provides a good image to start with.  Think of the savings in rent & utilities, and of course this also supports commute trip reduction, reduces sick days / colds & flues being brought to campus and spread around; it also addresses a vulnerability we've recognized in our disaster preparedness plan.
• This also saves the employees the exepenses related to their commute, which management can bring to the contract negotiating table.  I.e., If I'm asking for a $500/year raise, and management says 'no' (I know that's hard to imagine, but just for the sake of argument...:-), but we can reduce your commute expense by $500 by letting you telework...isn't that the same thing?

1. More Online Classes

• This is, in essense, telework, but with a little extra...:
• = Less demand on classroom space = less utility expenses, etc.
• = Commute Trip Reduction for Faculty
• = Commute Trip Reduction for Students

1. Bring-back department-owned "all-lots" parking passes.

• A few years ago, Parking changed the rules and said if you want to use an "all-lots" pass (for example, if you need to drive to a meeting on campus from 32nd St.), then from now on you must already own a $400 personal pass and display them together on your dash.  Financial ramifications:
• --- Many employees who otherwise had no need or reason to spend $400 on a personal pass because they typically rode the bus, walked or rode their bike except when they had meetings had to buy a personal pass just so they could continue to do their official business on campus.
• --- After 2 years of denied reimbursements for parking expenses while conducting official business on campus, WWU's ATG found out what was happening and put a stop to it.  Now reimbursements can happen again, but at a significant cost to WWU -- I think I heard Dale Monroe say the reimbursement for for a $5 parking reimbursement costs WWU between $40~$80 to process.

1. Re-assess the need for campus vehicles.

• If WWU would bring back the department-owned "all-lots" parking passes, per above, the need for many official vehicles could be reduced significantly.  These cost money to fuel and maintain.

1. Balance the demand for classroom space

• Better scheduling of classrooms will allow us to close-down (at least lock and turn the heat and lights off) more classrooms, which will save money.  Many private (department held) classrooms do not meet a reasonble level-of-use threshold.

1. Integrate Independent Learning into curriculums - especially GUR / <300 level

• I.L. courses do not require classroom space

1. Set an enrollment threshold for some courses - especially GUR / <300 level

• Some classes are offered every quarter, and/or have a respectable number of alternatives (often in other departments) that could serve the same purpose, as far as meeting GUR or other low-level graduation requirements are concerned.  For all the "grown-up" talk we can have about the value of GURs, these are more of an endurance test in the eyes of many students than anything else -- by which I mean, I don't think we'll get too many complaints from students who end up having to take History 101 because English 101 was full, or had to wait a quarter to take it.
• Setting a "profitability" threshold for these courses would mean figuring out how many students it takes before WWU's not losing money on the course.
• This would require some inter-departmental cooperation.  For instance, in the example above, History and English would have to meet and agree between them which of them would give-up the class for that quarter or take-on the other's students.  Departments are going to have their own budgets closer to their heart than anything else, so a profit-sharing agreement between the two departments might be appropriate for such cases.

1. Be careful not to over-use grad students

• Grad students teaching low-level classes is a great way to save money (I speculate) over hiring a higher-degreed faculty, but I've been a student in those situations here at WWU (Thank you staff-tuition fee waiver!!!), and know that many students have been dissatisfied with paying full-tuition, and not getting what they perceive to be a "real" teacher.  That's primarily a PR issue, and can be addressed as such.  But I also know that while our grad students are excellent in their knowledge of the subject, they have to balance the demands on them as a student with those of their employement, and since we should assume being a grad student is the higher of those two priorities, we need to be careful that course quality doesn't suffer.

Well that's just off the top of my head...  I think a couple of those ideas wouldn't require much in the way of preparation before implementation - the parking pass & campus vehicle ideas, at any rate.  Telework should also be pretty easy to implement -- given what's made available to us via MyWWU now, the office computer is no longer necessary if you've got one at home.

I liked some of the other ideas that were posted before this as well.

- dave

I'm not sure how much it would save the University - but what about going to a 4 day week for the entire University?  If the entire University were closed on Fridays (or Mondays) we would have a reduction in energy costs.

Oops...one more I forgot to mention:

Why does 10 credits cost the same as 18?  

It seems like a great deal to those students who are able to take 18 credits per term, but none the less, it means "full-time" students (12 credits) must pay more than full-time tuition in order to provide the free credits for those students who take more than a full load.

I'm not suggesting that we do away with the "free credit program" altogether - I think it's a great incentive for students in some ways, and probably helps us with timely graduation, but we do have to acknoledge that we're giving away a lot of free credits.  Also, not all universities do this -- in fact, I'm not even sure 'most' of them do it.  When the discussion turns to "how can we avoid increasing the tuition by the maximum allowable amount every year...", one answer might be to not give away so many free credits -- to turn our focus more specifically to the needs of the "full-time" (12-credit) student.

What would the financial impact be if we changed the free-credit range to 12~18 instead, or even 12~16?

Question for someone who knows more than me:

1) One of the ways the state funds us is based on the number of credits our students take, yes?  If so, what happens when students get into the free credit range?  For example, if a student takes 18 credits, does the state fund us for 18 credits, or just 10?

- dave

Could surplus that isn't selling on the web be sold by holding a "WWU Garage Sale" at a central location every few months?  This wouldn't generate tons of revenue, but might help.

I would hope that as an institution of higher education, that we could employ common sense for budget cuts.  Competent teaching should be valued; the tenure system should not be so precious that, as in some cases, it is effectively reduced to a protective haven for incompetence. 

I also suggest considering the coorporate model of reducing the hours of operation.  Close the University on select days, near holidays.  Give all employees an unpaid day off.

By providing some modest incentives for faculty and staff that are near retirement, a lot of salary and related costs can be decreased through an early retirement program. Many of the senior faculty make 1.5 to 2 times the salary of entry-level faculty, and if there is a gap (usually a year) between a retirement and a replacement hire, the savings are greater. This puts a greater burden on the people who do not retire, in the short term, and given the steep declines in retirement account values it may not be easy to coax people into retirement.

We certainly need to look at everything mentioned so far, but I think what Roberta said, and what we discussed in the TLA, is key. We need to priortize first and foremost - we can't just jump from one idea to another willy-nilly. Also, to get the ball roling, we need to start off with simple methods of saving energy/reducing waste that everyone can do without a great deal of inconvience, "low hanging fruit" is the old saying, I believe. We can't impose a bunch of restrictions all at once, for things just wouldn't get done - there will be too much protest. Another point is that some sort of incentive has to be offered if you want full support from the students. There could be, for example, competions or some form of class credit. Incorporating some of our questions and ideas on this topic into classes could help hugely. It would act as part of that incentive (credits), it would help us do necessary research to find out how much money we can save by doing this or that, and it would spread the word about what we are trying to do. I think getting the information out is key - you need to have informed voters for good imput. This could be done in other ways too, but I think that more ways is better. Email can help, but many wouldn't even read it, and so we could try things like residence hall mandatory meetings, on-campus events, posters, and I'm sure much more that I haven't yet thought of. The sooner we get all the information we need, and the sooner we get that information out to the campus community, the better off we'll be. With a strong collaborative effort, we can greatly imporve our financial prospects, improve Western as a sustainable universtiy in general, and help bring everyone here, students and faculty alike, together as we strive for a cause collaboratively.

I'd be surprised to learn that nobody has suggested this yet, but I don't see it on this forum so here goes:

How many copies of Microsoft Office do we maintain, and how is their licensing negotiated? At the risk of sounding anti-capitalist, we should take a serious look at open source alternatives, the front runner probably being OpenOffice (see http://www.openoffice.org for info). It can co-exist with Office just fine (especially if non-proprietary document file formats are encouraged/mandated), so no "big bang" migration would be necessary. Exceptions could be made for those workers who can make the case for staying with Office (legacy/interwoven macros, perhaps?), but 90+ percent would be able to just switch without any serious issues.

I'm advocating *actually doing it*, not just putting on a puppet show to give whoever negotiates our licensing a stronger bargaining position, but since our primary goal here is to save money would have to say that that would not be a terrible result either...
 

I really support this idea as well. And i'd like to add that as a Mac user, NeoOffice is a fantastic Mac version of OpenOffice that is constantly updated for security and stability.

I do wonder though how much functionality our support staff would lose. Is OpenOffice as robust as some of the mail-merging features between outlook and word, for example? I can't really speak to that.

I will also say that the learning curve going from Word to OpenOffice is less drastic than going from Word 2003 to Word 2007, too.

I also think that having a scheduled shutdown program for every computer on campus would save money too. It's not enough to remind people to shut down their systems, we all still often forget. Having an automatic after-hours shutdown feature would save electricity and extend the life of computer hardware.

- Luke

I have heard that an energy study showed that the University could save a huge amount of money if it closed during the holidays. Does anyone know what the energy savings would be if we closed over Christmas Break?

Many, many years ago, Western did close the week between Ch'mas and New Years in order to save energy.  However, the staff had to use leave or be on leave without pay during that week.  I was very glad that I had enough leave so I continued to be paid.  (Nowadays, there may be union rules about "forcing" staff to use leave).  I do remember, though, when I returned to work on January 2, the typewriters (yes, this was before computers), didn't want to work because the oil (or whatever is on the inside of typewriters) had gotten cold and all gummed up.  I also remember that it seemed to take forever to warm up the office.  Our boss was not happy with this situation.  I'm all for saving energy, but there's more to consider than just turning off the lights, locking the doors, and leaving for a week. 

Speaking of saving energy, the idea of the Facilities Management people "truck-pooling" instead of each individual worker driving their own individual truck from the the Maintenance area over to main campus is a great idea. 

I have recently been pondering ways to reduce the amount of money spent at western throughout the next few years.  After going to the recent session of TLA  I was very interested in some of the ideas that were brought to the attention of the group about ways to reduce money spent.  After reading more of the ideas that are spoke about in the the reduction of cost I couldnt' help but agree with a few in particular that I believe would truly benefit the school. 

1.) Finding a way for 35 or so positions throughout the entire school to teleport so the cost of the independent studies building on 32nd would not have the cost of rent and utilities.

2.) Ask Green coats to turn off all lights when locking up the buildings

3.) Use grad students in lower level classes in order to teach the classes. The same material would be taught and it would be a huge savings in cost.  Many other Universities use this idea, and I think it would be in Western's best interest to do the same.

Those are just a few ideas, but I truly appreciate having the ability to speak my mind and my ideas to the President of the University.

Hilary

I believe that the MS software used by students, faculty, and other staff on campus is donated to Western via the Foundation.

A few links:

http://www.wwu.edu/microsoft/caq.html

http://www.wwu.edu/microsoft/h2_donate.html

Higher education is unique in that our customers are tomorrow's leaders; decisions we make will impact them for many years to come. The only fair way to solve this is to include everyone, students, faculty and staff. I would hope that any increse in tuition would be minimal and that layoffs can be avoided.

Since most of the University's staff are in unions financial concessions by the unions would seem appropriate to offset a sizable amount of the budget reduction. Rather than anyone loose their job I would recommend we forgo part of our upcoming raise for the next two years; we could not take the 2% proposed raise in 2009 and then get the 2% in 2010.

I know the Legislature has not approved any raises yet, but perhaps this cound be offered as part of the negotations with them. If we all give something and do our part to get through these challenging times, we will all be better for the experience.

Before considering a "voluntary" 20% reduction in staff income, has any thought been given to the impact on benefits, such as retirement?  Have HR and/or the unions been consulted?  

I realize these are all very difficult financial times for the university, as well as Washington State and the nation, and we must all do our best to maintain the excellence of the university with reduced funding.  However, before asking staff to tighten their belts, a reduction in other, less vital, expenses might be considered.  For example, is it really necessary to have a holiday party with tables loaded with cookies and other treats?  Also, with the budget in such dire straits, is this really the time to create a full color magazine ("Window") for campus-wide distribution?  Although I am sure the expenses for these items would have no real impact on the overall university's budget, surely it would be better to at least make it appear that senior management is tightening their belts too.

...and don't forget addressing the leaking hot water faucets in most of the restooms (I can only speak to the women's restrooms...) or turning down the thermostats in the hot water heaters so that the "hot" water is warm but not scalding.

I agree that considering open source software for cost saving is a good idea. OpenOffice is good software and is currently installed in general university labs so it is readily available for anyone to use or just try out.

Lucky for us, most of our Microsoft Office software is donated by WWU alumni employed at Microsoft. The Western Foundation is currently working to get more donations, so if you know Microsoft employees, please let them know that a $5 donation to Western can be matched with a license for Microsoft Office. Information about the program is available at http://www.wwu.edu/microsoft.

For those who need Microsoft Office for its features or experience with the programs, it can be purchased at the AS Bookstore with an academic discount with WWU ID; and students can download the software from Microsoft for $59.95 at http://www.theultimatesteal.com.

Exploring options for software that can save us money - open source or otherwise - is a good idea. Maybe we can find other donation programs, too.

Sometimes just some simple ideas can be helpful, both green ideas and cost-saving ideas.  We seem to print a great many colorful brochures and printing costs really add up.  I think we always use recycled paper, but can we seek any additional cost saving in this area?

We seem to leave a lot of large bright lights on down the south side of campus near the Transportation Center.  Some lights are needed for safety but these are on even during the holidays when nobody is walking there.  And are we seeking energy-saving light fixtures?

The heat is sometimes on in Old Main from late September when it is still warm -- even as late as May.  It is not like we live on the East Coast where there is lots of variations in temperature.... and it is truly freezing out.  Most people wear sweaters and hoodies and can handle slightly cooler temperatures.

Lights are all too often left on in the Board Room and in the hallways of Old Main.  I leave sometimes at 7 or 8 pm at night when only facilities workers are in the building yet ALL the brightest lights are on.

Phone bills are another area.  With so many people using cell phones it may not be necessary to have large phone expenditures. 

Has anybody seen the newest concerete (being used on Chicago streets -- see CNN's recent program on "Green Warriors") or thought of using it on the newly created traffic bumps on the roadway next to the arboretum?  If the water could drain we wouldn't have those huge puddles growing next to the bumps that splash the students as they walk by on their path to school.  This seems like a serious design flaw.  The new green concrete allows water to pass through it and actually cleans the water that eventually enters the ground system.

Qwik Copy used to recycle some of its used paper into note pads but stopped doing it I believe.  Much paper that is thrown away could be used on the opposite blank side.

I dont think anybody should suggest that anybody take a pay cut of any kind, and it is hard to even imagine that somebody would actually make that suggestion. Nobody knows what financial hardship people may be enduring already... and certainly if staff are going to suffer the brunt of getting pay cuts when they are already not able to make ends meet. 

I hesitate to suggest it, but it seems like the first volunteers to offer to cut salaries ought to be the big salaries over 100 grand.  These may already be 30 to 50% higher than most classified staff make. What an example that would set!  Cutting those just 1/2 of 1% and the university would save quite a few thousands of dollars. 

However, I want to emphasize that I am not for pay cuts of any kind for anybody.  For some people that could mean not only financial disaster, but emotional and psychological impact of a very serious nature, especially in families where only one person is working. If people wish to volunteer for early retirement that is a different matter entirely. This is a hard issue, and hopefully things should improve before we have to even consider going down that road.

Happy Holidays everybody.

In the past, Western published the University catalog once every two years - instead of every year.  I don't know how much this would save in printing costs but feel it is worth exploring. 

A few people have mentioned the cost of licensing Microsoft Office. Many of these licenses are donated, but not all of them, so there is definitely an opportunity here to save money by using OpenOffice instead. Furthermore, considerable staff resources are devoted to soliciting MS license donations, and to tracking license compliance, all of which could eventually become unnecessary if we transitioned to OpenOffice. And since perfect license compliance is effectively impossible to achieve, there is always potential legal liability that goes along with using MS Office or other proprietary software.

It is of course true that some open source software lacks documentation, some lacks support, some has poor usability, and some lacks important features or stability. But there are many examples of excellent open source software that is just as suitable as proprietary equivalents, and not to use it is irresponsible.

Searches cost us quite a bit in terms of money and time. Some of the searches at Western indisputably need to be done on a national scale, but we could consider looking at the corporate model and make more promotions from within the university; it seems like it's the exception at Western when someone is promoted from the inside.

Even with the hiring freeze now in place, we still have a number of key positions that need to be filled, and those searches are moving foward. While the the hiring freeze will save funds in the short term, it might work against us in the long run: for those staff acting in double-duty capacity on an interim basis, we can't expect them to perform both jobs optimally, not to mention good old fashioned burn-out if double duty persists. Filling these openings from our existing ranks would address the issue of relieving staff who are doing two jobs, and would save a significant amount of money if we did not conduct regional or national searches. Another benefit to an increase in internal promotions is staff retention--rewarding excellent job performance with advancement, like the business world. When promotions are from within, the training time required by a new person is also nixed as a local will surely know our campus culture and policies, and may even already know how to do that particular job.

One of the most wasteful and painful aspects of the search process is when it fails. We must then start the entire search process all over again. If there is an interim person in that post performing two jobs, I feel for them, too. What an amazing waste of resources (staff time and funds) to have to conduct multiple searches for one opening. I think this is an area of our budget and hiring practice that we should revise for both short term and long term gains.

COST SAVING IDEAS -- this has to do with our energy consumption and the initial outlay could be expensive but if you look at the five and ten year savings . . . well worth it AND will increase our sustainability focus.

1. There are a lot of flat roofs on campus -- an assessment would need to be performed to see if the weight for retrofitting, etc. would be needed but install ECO-roofing systems, The new (maybe 2 years old now) Seattle Public Library in Ballard has an ECO roof. The cities of Portland, OR and Chicago, IL have transformed thousands of square feet of flat roofs to ECO. Benefit, less heating and cooling costs (12 inches of soil with ground cover planted insulates the roofs better), the impervious surface of the building is countered by the ECO-roof, the plants provide CO2 processing to decrease the carbon footprint of the building and Chicago was able to not add on or build a new storm water cleansing system. Many of these projects were partially to fullly funded through grants. I first read about this in Sunset Magazine a couple years ago and have read more recently in articles by Tom Friedman in the New York Times as well as many others -- it is a HOT topic.  And who knows maybe the design could be done by a student group!  Twice the benefit!!!

2. Solar Panels of the flat roofs to generate electricity. The experiment at the VU is a great start but more could be done. Again a large capital outlay in the beginning and again -- grant funds could be available. Also consider looking at solar panel collectors from other countries; there is a company in Germany owned by US Citizens who could not find start up capital who have developed a more efficient energy collection system from the sun, i.e., works on overcast days that would be worth investigating.

3. The added benefit is whatever electricity generated that was not needed on campus could be sold back to PSE to cover the cost of natural gas to run the boilers in the steam plant.

4. AND as much as it may hurt we have to look at programs that are being offered because they always have been but really don’t have enrollment to justify their existence.

5. This will take a huge paradigm shift but what if the state institutions started working together. Eastern has the best degree program in X and Central and Western’s programs are just OK. Transfer those students and faculty and resources to the school with the best programs and vice-versa. WSU decades ago started working with a school in Oregon and Idaho for specialty programs in their DVM program. Small enrollments at all three institutions turned into decent size classes. The courses were offered all the same semester; students paid tuition to their home institution but took the courses on the other campuses. It involved moving away for one quarter but to gain the subject matter expertise, well my niece didn’t mind one bit!

6. Are food wastes composted by Dining Services? If not they should be and what compost the institution doesn’t need for it’s own use could be sold possibly even to GrowSource out on the Hannegan.

INCOME GENERATING IDEAS:

1. I calculated that if the 10 - 18 credits for x price was increased to 12 – 18 for 10,000 students the additional revenue at the current tuition rate would be in the neighborhood of $3,500,000. But if the flat fee for x to y credits was done away with completely I'm confident that the increased tuition would be significantly higher. Yes --- that places more burdens on the student and their families for the cost of tuition. But the practice is not unusual -- I believe our practice is, at least from my personal experience!
I have two sons who attended colleges out of state for their degrees; the youngest earning three degrees/certificates at public institutions in Canada, Missouri and Oregon. None of the institutions had a tuition policy of x to y credits for the same price. Everything was charged by the credit. AND significant fees (up to $150 per credit for some classes) were added when cost to deliver was higher than the typical classroom lecture course. One of the institutions even had different basic tuition rates for different programs: i.e., pre-law, pre-med, etc.

My oldest son attended a private school in Ohio and they to charged by the credit with a maximum that was equal to 18 credits per semester. He also had additional significant fees added to the class based on the need and additional fees for weekend seminars presented by subject matter experts outside the institutions faculty base. These seminars provided real world experience and application to what he was learning in the program AND introduced him to the industry network.

2. In the HEC Board’s Strategic Plan the universities were challenged to provide degree completion programs to students who had not completed their degrees. WWU’s response was to make readmission to the institution easier. WSU’s response was to assess which programs had the most non-completions and offer DISTANCE LEARNING opportunities to their former students. Eight programs were identified by May of 2008 with the plan for all to go live through Distance Delivery Methods: correspondence, online, polycom, telecourse, etc. this fall. Students leave school for a reason; either cost or “life happens.” Five years later they may be married with children, have a job a mortgage, etc. They can’t uproot and move back to Bellingham.

3. The HEC Boards Strategic Plan also pointed out that Washington state is the largest importer of workers with degrees in computer science, communications and engineering and the 38th producer of those degrees. I believe we should look at how we can increase enrollment in those areas both by offering courses at night, satellite campuses and via distance learning. Despite what some people want to believe statistics indicate that there is NO decrease in the knowledge gained by the student in courses delivered via distance learning methods. What research has shown is that is not a learning method for everyone – some people need the face-to-face interaction and structure.

4. Convince the State to not allow the UW to start a new College of Environmental Science. With budget cuts and Western’s internationally recognized programs at Huxley it just doesn’t make sense to duplicate something 90 miles away. Use some of those State funds to increase the resources at Huxley to accommodate more students.

LASTLY I would highly encourage everyone on the budget committee to read Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America. The first portion states the problems and can be pretty depressing. The last portion addresses real life solutions; it is inspirational and I believe can help everyone involved in these budget deliberations develop a mind set for problem solving “outside the box.”

Thank you, Bruce Shepherd for allowing us to give input for our own community.  In my Dialogue class with Carmen Werder we talked recently about how important it is to discover and learn new information through discourse.  Any given chance to participate for my education should not be taken for granted.  I appreciate the opportunity you've given for students, faculty, and staff to be a part of the decision making for Western.

I think that a lot of these ideas are wonderful.  One idea I had was to put in sensor lighting in the classrooms.  When I take evening classes in the Comm facility, I notice many empty classrooms with the lights on...well into the evening hours.  I know it would cost money to install these, but in the long run, we might save a little too.  Or consider installing these into the new Comm Science & Disorders building on south campus.  Just a small idea.

The subject of this is not likely to be the most appealing suggestion, but it would certainly achieve the cost reduction goal.  The UW president has a salary somewhere in the ballpark of $900,000.  I would not be surprised that the individuals making up Western's administration make absurd salaries as well.  Therefore, I do not think it would be unreasonable to reduce the salaries of those individuals due to the recent budget reduction.  It seems to me that one could actually go an entire year completely without salary and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle(because of accumulated earnings from the exorbitant salaries from past years).  Just think, if $900,000 was saved in salaries, that would make up for almost three-fourths of the recent $1.3 million budget cut. 

The mayor of New York and multiple governors have gone without a salary because they are independently wealthy and want to do their part to save money for their state.  Why not have an administrator or a few do that to save money for their university. 

Administrators at Western--like most everyone else at the University--are relatively underpaid. The President's salary is well below average for university presidents and reported to be about 1/3 of the figure you cite. Indeed, Western itself is underpaid: the state gives us fewer dollars per student than it gives Eastern or Central. The fact that we can pay faculty a bit more than Eastern or Central when we receive proportionately less state support than they do is further evidence of how lean we already are adminstratively.

Moreover, Old Main is trying to lead by example. Travel restrictions are stricter there than in the colleges, for instance. Administrative support positions are going unfilled; others have been eliminated. Of course, this is as it should be. Teaching is our mission. Making sure we can provide the classes our students need has got to be our first priority. It may seem unfair, but those of us who are not teaching must bear most of the burden of the cuts necessary to keep teachers in classrooms. Unfortunately, we won't find those cuts in lucrative salaries because no one at Western--plumber, professor or president--has one.

I don't like this talk about salary reductions.  As one poster noted, nobody at WWU has lucrative salary, and we even have an employee group whose salaries have been consistently diminished over the past 20+ years with respect to cost of living increases (classified staff -- computer techs, budget analysts, etc.), so I'd be even more loath to lean on that group than any other.  To make matters worse for all employees and students, the cost of living in Bellingham has increased more than almost anywhere else in the state in recent years.

There is another group I'm curious about though -- admittedly, I am not sure how to anylize this with respect to pros/cons, but I haven't seen any posts about it yet, so maybe someone will answer this who has information on it:

What about those who are officially retired, collecting a full retirement from the State, AND collecting a full-time salary from WWU?  I know in the past, we've had some folks actually collecting 2 retirements + their full-time WWU salary.  Is it an extra burden?  If so, how much?  I remember when K12 started hiring back retired teachers during the teacher shortage, there was a lot of controversy over it, and a surge of teachers retiring earlier than they otherwise had planned so they could get hired back right away and reap the extra financial benefits (which undermined the state's effort.)

It's tempting to feel like these folks are just taking advantage of the system to get rich -- I mean, I've heard that said from several people.  But that really misses the point -- after all, if you can make a million without hurting anyone, go for it!  But that points tothe question: does it hurt us?  Does it take opportunity away from others to find employement?  Is it necessary?  Is it a significant factor at WWU?

Do you have more pro/con information about this?

Thanks,

-dave

Eliminate all univeristy travel, unless it is part of an external grant that specifies the particular travel and would involve no use of state funds. 

No campus wide printing of flyers, notices, etc. - send them to the recipients via email. 

Take a look at the staffing of the Facilities Management Department from top to bottom.  This could be an area where some sensible reductions could be made.

Take a look at all sattelite campuses and departments.  Are they absolutely necessary in these times of budget shortfall?  If they are only serving a very very limited number of students they should be eliminated.

Along the same lines, take a look at the Extended Education and Summer Programs Department.   Could we make some reductions in staffing and programs in this area? 

This may seem too obvious but I believe it merits mentioning.

I have read many creative ideas for budget slimming from turning lights off to cutting incomes. Unfortunately, even if we all sacrificed in every possible way, we are still facing serious shortfalls inadequate for funding our campus NEEDS. I emphasize NEEDS because during financial shortfalls in our own homes we are forced to reconsider what is a NEED, and what is a WANT. Naturally, we will all have our opinions of what are the campus "needs" and "wants". For example, remodeling our home kitchen may once have been deemed as a NEED when the income was sufficient. However, when the finances are inadequate, then the kitchen remodel is somehow emotionally and financially reconsidered to be a WANT.

Here is my point: I understand there are 35-50 Million Dollars of funds allocated by the State to WWU for the Miller Hall remodel. It should now be reconsidered a WANT, whereas before it was considered to be a NEED. I understand the funds were under somebody's accounting column called "Capital Funds" but they still came from Olympia just like our other columns we use for various "Operating Expenses". Can anyone picture pieces of a pie being cut up from one pie?

Under these economic times, households who once had a savings column in their own budgets for a kitchen remodel will need to move those funds wisely into "operating funds" to care for the kids, pay the many bills, heat the house etc. The same should be true for the funds WWU receives from the State. To me, it seems a bit absurd for the State to say we need to painfully cut our operating expenses when they have just given us tens of millions of dollars to remodel Miller Hall. Yes, under normal circumstances, the remodel should be completed. But these are not normal circumstances and when the funds were approved by Olympia the future shortfall was not foreseen.

Bottom line: every department should do what they can to be more efficient, but wisdom would tell us that both in our home and on our campus we need to reconsider what are our WANTS and our NEEDS. Miller Hall may not be the fancy "kitchen" we feel we need for a remodel, but it has been (and still is) working effectively. Can you imagine the adverse effects we all will experience if we feel significant painful budget cuts in every department and yet watch tens of millions of dollars in remodel expenses pouring right out in front of us? And I would be willing to give up a paycheck to be proven wrong on this someday but I have no doubt the cost financially and experientially will be significantly higher than is currently anticipated.

I say again, it may seem obvious, but I hope this idea isn't discarded just because it doesn't fit under the right column for our budget accounting books.

How about not printing any at all - just having an online version??

Thank you President Shepard for giving the Western Community a chance to give input on the budget crisis. Personally, I think we will all benefit from the ideas being presented and because we have been a part of the process, there will be less hostility about the inconvenient situation at hand. Kudos to you-

Ways To Save Money:

* Print substantially less newspapers from the Western Front - I see an astronomical amount of papers getting recycled without even being read. Plus, it is so easy to publish this information to a website in our technological society.

* No longer use receipts for campus dining halls; it is an unneccessary expense. Instead, allow students to check balances online- this makes it even more accessible so that they can check it from any location and at any time.

* Do not use trays in the cafeteria- students eat more food, waste more food, and overall, the campus looses revenue and the students get fatter.

OR

* Do not have buffet style cafeterias - I used to go to WSU and because students had to pay for every item that they ate, they would eat significantly less.

* Increase the cost to park on campus - it will force more students to use public transportation, therefore less pollution will be emitted and the University will have more revenue.

AND

* Increase parking ticket fees.

* Charge 2, 5, or even 10 cents per page to print on the school computers. This would reduce the amount of paper used by cutting down on hasty printing.

* Turn off any lights/ add motion sensors to decrease energy bills

* Add meters to the campus residences so that students are charged based off their energy consumption. This adds incentive for using less energy if the price to live in the dorm would decrease as well.

* Any other ideas that would make the Western Community think about limiting consumption to their advantage

Thank you for your time,

*cancel classes that enroll at 8 or under
*have all the departments convert all courses to 5 credits
*hiring freeze on tenure-track appointments
*WWU & Faculty Union agree to abort the current merit pay increases and instead use the money to hire NTT faculty to teach much needed sections for student access
Marc

Having been through the unfortunate experience of lay-offs and organizational restructurings in the past, I would be open to a number of ideas which would work to save jobs. With this in mind, I would like to suggest the possibility of a "temporary" reduction in weekly work hours. Maybe an 8 hour, 4 day work week or 7 hour, 5 day work week ..... Some amount of hour reduction that cooperatively could make a difference on Campus. Understanding "temporary" being used as an operative word to this suggestion in that after a year, no more than two years, the positions would have the option of going back to full-time 40 hours a week status. Other Benefits unaffected of course! 

Debbie Curry, University Planning & Budget Office

I'm certain that more than a few PERS 2 classified staff would take retirement if the state reduced or dropped  the penalties for doing so.

Many departments could reduce their spending if there were an organized way for them to see the surplus property that has become available and get it back to someplace that needs it.

Steve

when I heard that the president was making more than our average teachers in a houseing bonus per year alone, I was sickened. If our university president can't find a house on a 600-900K yearly income, then do we really want them making decisions for our school? Why the extra 60k a year for housing? Indeed, I understand that Western may be below average on all income fronts, but is this a bad thing when we consider the presidents salery? 600k/900k, how much is enough? I am sure that there is a teacher on campus with enough "street smarts" so to speak to be more than capable of running the university. To make 11X-14X the average teacher's salery may be common in other schools, but how can we have equallity when we treat our leaders like royalty? Can't they survive on 2X the teachers pay? What kind of message are they sending to their employees when they expect them to live and work for 11-14 times less than them? As it was said already, this alone could soften the debt.

The cause of economic woes starts at home. Its not the economy, its not the state, it comes from personal managment.If we students can live on $5-$10 a week for food, then it's not impossible (just uncomfortable).

I wish I could remain unnammed here, but I'm just shooting from the hip.

Oh, and the printing thing is just silly this quarter. We do pay a technology fee. Having teachers make us print things out dosent stop the amount of printing. It just transfers who is doing the printing and making students struggle with deciding what is valuable enough to print. I know i have a ton of writing in my classes, and I butt my limit every quarter already. For one class alone (our of 4) I have over 60 pages of just notes. TESL students have limitless documents and lesson plans to print, and I can only imagin what English majors must be feeling like now.

We have a lot of classified staff that don't have access to email--the custodians, the maintenance workers, the gardeners, etc.  Those folks need a hard copy.  But I'd go with the idea to email all us office workers and faculty and eliminate hard copy flyers and notices.  Every little bit helps.

On the same note, many of the maintenance, grounds, and custodial workers do not have access to post to this blog.  I would suggest some hard copy outreach.

In hard times, nontraditional programs such as Extended Education and Summer Programs fill a much needed role in providing access to higher education.

The employees of Facilities Management work behind the scenes, but provide very much needed maintenance services to the campus at large.  A reduction in maintenance is a 'penny-wise but pound-foolish' approach and would negatively impact the learning environment for students.

"Perhaps the most important component of how we move forward has already been touched upon.  We must move forward together.  That's the reason why this convocation is organized as it is.  That is why, every week or two when I ask a selection of colleagues to join me for breakfast, there will be people from all parts of the university--those who get here early to those who leave here late, those who work inside wearing business attire and those who work outside wearing rain gear."  Bruce Shepard, Convocation 2008

The new president's willingness and ability to build community; and his understanding of the role each group plays in support of the academic mission will be reflected not only in the process by which he implements these very serious budget cuts, but also by how the impact affects each and every one of us.

I am encouraged by his approach thus far.

Anonymous

I would like to correct something.  Our current Presdeint is not making the same salaries that you may have read about in the news about UW and WSU.  Bruce's salary was published as $300,000.  See

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/102/story/392065.html

However, even if you add a housing allowance of your 60K figure (Which I think is high) this does not come close to 600/900K. 

I hope that clears up a misconception.  Thanks.

I have received several suggestions from all over campus from PSE of WWU members.  Here are a few:

1.  There is something wrong with pro-staff being allowed to show up for 1-4 hours per day and be able to be paid for the whole day. That's giving away state money and not receiving anything in return. Why would anyone report sick leave with that option available to them? Pro-staff already receive 24 days of sick leave up front  - why is the other benefit needed at all? 

(Susan's note -- pro-staff  receive 24 days vacation a year  plus 8 hours a month sick leave) 

2.  The University should consolidate printers and have print stations.  Even a company as big as Micrsoft only has one large printer per floor with a color printer on every other floor.  We must spend a lot of money on toner when it is not necessary.

3.  There was someone on the forum who made the suggestion that students should be charged for lab printing. I agree that a charge is the best way to slow down use and make people think about what they are printing.   The print release stations do slow them down some but there is still a lot of waste. In addition, more and more material is being posted on Blackboard or electronic reserves, then the students turn right around and print it on the "free" lab printers. If they (students) are going to print it anyway, it should be done efficiently as a manual on production equipment rather than lab printers.  With planning materials could be available through large (efficient) copiers and printers. 

4.  Wouldn't it save money to shut down as much as possible between Christmas and New Years?  If whole buildings could be shut down that should save on utilities. Time could be charged to vacation, winter break day, personal holiday, maybe even leave without pay for volunteers.  In California there are Universities that shut down every year between the holidays.  Each year certain holidays such as Martin Luther King Day, Presdient's Day are exchanged for the time between the holidays.  I understand facilities does a lot of work doing this time but it seems that something could be worked out.  If offices were not available for the public it could be exaplained as a cost savings measure. 

Here is an idea. I remember reading an article in the Western Front how WWU could not house all the incoming freshman. If we were to be more strict on who we accept and limit the number of incoming freshman that will alliveate the problem of housing and cut spending on hotel rooms. Top notch schools limit the number of accepted students, why can't Western?

Get rid of trays

-Students would eat less food, meaning cooks would have to make less food, cutting production cost.  This would also cut production cost in the dishroom---> less soap, water, and energy used.  As students would eat less, not only would that mean less food waste, but less food  purchased.

 Limit the number of return dorm residents

This could alleviate the overcrowding in the dorms as well as possibly cutting down energy costs. Sophomore year should be the cut-off unless their is financial reasoning.

Maybe, Limit the number of students accepted each year.

Here are a few of my thoughts...

1.)  Offering a voluntary two week leave during the holidays without pay (faculty & students are generally all gone during this time)?  Some would definately take the chance and save their departments the salary expense.  

2.)  Closing the university completely for a week or two during the break.. thus saving salaries, heating costs, energy costs, etc. (this of course would probably have to be negotiated with the unions).   

3.)  Offer temporary PT positions instead of laying people off if needed (make it voluntary unless layoffs imminent).  Departments could accomplish 8am-5pm hours by staggering their employees work shifts.  Make it known to the employee that the PT position can be changed back to a FT position at any time with 2 weeks notice.

I would like to start by saying that Western has been known for being a very good value for the education that we provide. I believe this financial situation is largely due to the tax revenue in this state coming from spending rather than income. 

Sorry for the aside.  If we have to make some hard cuts we should be doing it as a family and not leave anyone out in the cold.  One way to share the burden across the board is to find time that we can close down.  By eliminating the 9 week summer session we can all get a three week summer vacation.  It will be hard to go without three weeks of pay but it would save the University that money and hopefully be enough to allow the state to keep running.

Addressing this issue should be a priority. I know the Campus Safety deparment has one admin person who fits this bill.

It would be interesting to see just how many twice-paid workers Western employs. And how much their combined salaries add up to. 

You'd have to check with Susan Brown to be certain, but I do believe that all copies of Office in the labs are donated by Microsoft employees.

How about getting rid of all the dust-collecting junk in the Armory and refurbish the building to something that would be useful and worthy of charging admission? Bring back the roller rink! :)

I do believe that our ventilation system, esp. in Miller Hall and I imagine many of the older buildings, are making us sick. I have lovely windows that because of some silly historic doctrine, DO NOT OPEN. Therefore I don't get fresh air. The upstairs vents spew black powder that can be seen if you tape tissue paper over the opening. It can't be healthy. We are sick way too often. The cost in sick time savings alone, if we had decent air to breathe, would be one of those cost savings that might not show numbers right away, but would be a great improvement over the long haul.

It doesn't. Do your research first.